I received the latest book in the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series in the mail on Friday. If I’d been a dog, I would have been wagging two tails. Then and there, not even sitting down, I just had to crack open the cover and read the first pages in the same manner I would have had to pop chocolates. Found this gem on the first page:

“This intrusion of the dawn came from the gap between the curtains–the gap that she always intended to do something about, but did not because there were more pressing domestic tasks and never enough time for everything you had to do.” ~ Alexander McCall Smith, The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café.

Is that not the truth, at least for we women writers, artists, mothers, caretakers, homemakers? I had so much requiring my attention this morning after the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend, which also required me to keep going on domestic tasks. There is only one way to deal with it, and that is to learn to sift and sort, let what go that can be let go. Getting good at this sorting does seem to require from some of us more ability that we seem to have; in any case, we do the best we can and press on. I saw to pressing domestic chores this morning– chickens cannot go hungry, and the holes in the fence where the new puppy was escaping had to be plugged– but then let everything else wait while I came up here to play with words. I think I’m getting better at saying no to things that I really do not have to do, and the world does not end.

“If you’re going through something in your life that isn’t what you planned, a transformation is at hand.” ~Melody Beattie, More Language of Letting Go

I did not plan to go all these years without writing a book. These years have been transformation years, to say the least. At times I’ve been dragged along kicking and screaming by transformation. Yet, I have kept writing, just not as I did for all the years before. Each time I decided to plan a project and start, the plans went to pieces. It wasn’t time for planning. It was, and often is, time for growing and transforming, which means breaking away from planning.

I find that now I’m more willing to let things be what they are, and value that. “Trust the process,” writer and teacher Jack Bickham used to preach. It was hard for me then. Today I’ve transformed into a writer who does trust her process, and even enjoys very often where it takes me.

Enjoy your transforming today. No fighting it off or bullying through. Embrace change? Yikes! At least smile at it.

CurtissAnn